Savior
by Belen09
Summary: It was something that John felt like he was almost born to do, and later - when his life went horribly off track - he still couldn't shake the impression that yes, everything had a purpose, a reason, a rationale . . . God knows what it was though . . .
1. Chapter 1

Savior

It was something that John felt like he was almost born to do, and later – when his life went horribly off track – he still couldn't shake the impression that yes, everything had a purpose, a reason, a rationale . . . God knows what it was though . . .

J/M, J/S R AU

OOOOO

It might have started with the incident at school – except that it didn't.

Really started when John Watson was four and his sister Harriet was a couple of years older. She had just got her first bicycle, and John was really impressed about it being shiny and red and altogether the most wonderful thing he had ever seen. He'd figured out how to read the word 'bicycle' on the box that it came in, though the word seemed odd . . . something about the spelling – 'I's and 'y's having the same sound . . . so much so that when his dad was putting on the training wheels for her, John didn't hear the warning that she got about being careful. (In all fairness though, Harry had also got angry with John about the word; something about him 'stealing' the word from reading it on the box – that gave the adults a laugh – later to be forgotten because of what happened.)

So Harry and John were out on the sidewalk that was in the front of the block of flats that their family lived in – Harry riding her new bicycle and John sitting on his tricycle, looking at his very happy sister. Next to their apartment building was a corner beyond which the children were not allowed to ride – the sidewalk had a steep incline leading to a spot that rolled out on to the street. It didn't take a great deal of imagination or intelligence to see what could happen if a child lost control of either their tricycles or the new bicycle. Both Watson children had been warned of the danger many times before.

This particular day Harry had ridden her new bicycle to the very edge of where they were allowed and looked in the direction of the steep incline. Surely as someone who was now 'old enough' to ride a two-wheeled bicycle (although with training wheels – just a technicality), she should be allowed to venture down the path and away from younger less-advanced and noisy brothers who could 'read'. Harry did not believe her younger brother when he told her that there were stories, 'really neat stories' that you could read, and that the signs on the corners of the buildings meant that you didn't ever have to be lost.

(Currently John was working his way through a story about 'ants' – those tiny bits of life that sometimes he would sit and watch quietly, as they scurried around on the front sidewalk. Harry asked him one day what he was looking at and John tried to point them out, and show that they were alive. Harry came up and started stomping on them and he said 'Don't do that!' Harry said, 'I can do what I want!' At that moment, some of the ants got angry and crawled up on Harry's shoes and past her socks, right on her skin. They began to bite, and she ran inside to tell Mum that John had made the ants bite her.

She didn't get the response from their mother that she expected; Mum said, 'Don't be silly! John didn't tell the ants to bite you. The ants bit you because you stomped on them. They aren't happy about that!' And she told Harry not to stomp on the ants. Harry still thought the ants were being friendly with John for no good reason . . .)

So she sat on her bicycle, right at the corner, thinking about how much fun it would be to 'fly down the sidewalk really fast – a lot faster than anyone on just a tricycle could go. Harry started to round the corner, and heard John say, 'Harry! Mum and dad said we can't go down there – it's too dangerous!' 'I can go anywhere I want,' Harry said loudly, 'I have a bicycle and you don't!' And she started to roll down the inclined sidewalk . . .

(Even years later – as an adult – John Watson remembered the looked of joy on his sister's face as she felt the thrill of rolling down the hill. Of course when she got to the bottom of the hill, she stopped abruptly, and tipped forward sharply, landing on her face. John didn't even wait to hear his sister start crying and was already running to get their mum.

Her face was totally scraped up as a result, and it turned out (when she had got an x-ray as an adult – John didn't ask why . . .) that she had also broken her nose, but nobody could tell at the time. It was the earliest time that John actively remembered being worried about someone getting hurt.)

In the years to come, it became a pattern, and one day a way of life for John Watson . . .

OOOOO

A.N. This is the start of a multi-part story. Sherlock Holmes and John Watson (and the people around them) are not my characters – they belong to people who are much better story-tellers than I – Of course, all stories can be eventually traced back to the great story-tellers of thousands of years ago – people who first wove tales of what might have been, or could still be – and sparked imagination in their listeners and later, readers . . .

It is in stories that humanity is passed to the next generations . . .

OOOOO


	2. Chapter 2

Savior Chapter Two

See above

OOOOO

A 'one-off' telling someone that they will get hurt if they do something is, well, nice. Not particularly 'soul-changing' but 'nice'. However for a four-year old it can be telling – so what happened to John Watson next – well, it was distinctly odd . . .

John Watson began instruction at the same school as Harry was currently attending – run by an order of teaching nuns it had a good reputation for education – upon graduation to secondary school the students were 'on average' two grade levels above the students at a similar local but secular school. Not only did John have an aunt who was a nun, but his parents did not want their children to be 'average'. Although it was debatable, whether either one of these facts was generally known to anyone at the school . . .

John walked behind the two tall nuns. One was extremely tall, the other only tall – at least to a short six-year old. They weren't paying a great deal of attention to him, which was odd, as they had specifically come to take him out of his class so he could meet with someone over at the convent. But then John had decided that adults had their own rules – most of which were not understandable to him. Adults seemed to want you do always do something without explaining 'why' – even if the something didn't make sense. Which was why John was listening to the nuns' conversation, although he knew it wasn't polite.

As he was crossing the street at the crosswalk, the boy heard the shorter nun ask the taller nun, 'Why did Mother Wilhelm want to speak with this child? She can't have known who he is.' (The name was not familiar to John either, so he wondered why too.) The taller nun answered the woman in a tone of voice that meant to him that it was a question that the taller nun didn't want to answer, but she did anyway. 'Mother Wilhelm had a vision.'

A vision? John tried wrapping his mind around what they were talking about; he knew that vision meant seeing something. He wondered if it was one of those 'Latin' words that he had talked to his mum about back when he was four – a really long time ago . . . he kept following the two nuns until they entered a grey building with a bumpy exterior. The inside smelled nice and John immediately noticed that it was like a small church with pews, and an altar; it also had windows that let in beautiful colors of light, but he tried to keep his head bowed as that was what you did in a church.

He walked along a side aisle until the nuns stopped in front of another nun who was sitting in a chair that had wheels. John had heard of wheelchairs before, and he thought that if you needed to use one it was a nice idea, but he had never actually seen one before. The nun who was sitting in the chair was very old, and it seemed to John that she must be at least as old as his great-grandmother, who he had met last summer. At any rate he hoped that since he hadn't had lunch yet today that he wasn't too dirty.

The nun in the wheelchair introduced herself as 'Mother Wilhelm', and said that she had wanted to meet him as he was a very good child. (This was slightly confusing as these were almost exactly the same words that his great-grandmother had said to him the previous summer; she had been driven to their house, and had not gone in the house, but had the cab parked next to the rose bushes where only the five-year old could get through without getting stuck by the thorns. 'You are a very good child,' stated his great-grandmother, who leant through the back door of the cab and put a hand on his head, 'and I am so glad to have finally seen you. I heard that you like to learn about living things.' This astonished John as his own mum and dad seemed not to realize how much he liked to read about and look at living things. He wondered why roses for example were alive and rocks weren't, and although rocks could be pretty, it was that roses were alive that really made him wonder.

Great-grandmother then gave him a brown wrapped bundle and bade him open it. John pulled at the string and opened the package which when open was revealed to be a book with pictures of animals and plants on the cover, and it said that it was a child's guide to the environment. It quickly became his favorite book – well – that and the book his mum had on what to do if you got sick or got injured. (His mum was very surprised when John announced that Harry had got 'the measles'; she didn't believe him about the spots being that disease until they had gone to the doctor, who had informed her severely that Harry had indeed exposed all the children in her class.) John's parents didn't tell him, but his great-grandmother passed away not long after; by any measurement ninety-six was a good long life . . .)

But now right in front of him was this esteemed nun – of course he kept his eyes down – it was not polite to look straight in the face of your elders, even if they had summoned you to stand before them. Mother Wilhelm regarded him for just a moment, though it seemed an eternity for John. 'You are John Hamish Watson,' she began, stating a fact that in no way could be contradicted. 'Yes, Mother,' he said, a bit frightened by the situation. She continued, barely waiting for his reply – 'One day, you will save people. You must be brave and of good heart. I know you are a good child, but you need to remember to be brave, that way you can save people.' (Years later, when John thought back to this strange conversation, he distinctly remembered her saying 'save' rather than 'help'. It confused him at the time, and actually later also. He thought that he liked to help people, but what could he as a six-year old do? I know my sums and I have many years to go before I can really 'do' anything . . . Mum would really not like me saving people.)

Then Mother Wilhelm took a sheet of cardboard from a bag at her side – John saw that it was a picture of an angel, cut out from a magazine and painted around with green daubs of paint, and it had a ribbon at the top for hanging up on a wall. The elderly woman concluded her talk by saying, 'I want you to have this to remember our conversation.' With that, the very tall nun wheeled her away, while John was escorted back to his class by the other nun.

When John got home, he tried to tell his parents about the strange thing that happened. Didn't work very well, though . . . as usual his mum only heard what she wanted to hear him say, and his dad . . . well, his dad liked to nap on the sofa, and he wasn't to bother him at all. So John put the picture of the angel away in his special keepsake box, and occasionally he would wonder what Mother Wilhelm meant.

OOOOO

A.N. I will be adding chapters as I write them – though it may take a while – I have another long story I'm writing in another fandom and will be alternating . . . I think that John would have to have a 'back story', a certain mindset to be the kind of person he is portrayed as . . .

OOOOO


End file.
